Freedom on All Sides
by She's a Star
Summary: It's such a childish impulse, to want something safe, but what it all comes down to is that she's running scared.


**Freedom on All Sides**

_By She's a Star_

**Disclaimer:** Lost isn't mine. If it was, Kate wouldn't be so inexplicably whorish. Not that I'm bitter. I think I just like the word 'whorish.'

**Author's Note:** So, with 'Lockdown' came Kate randomly being in love with Jack again after they haven't really interacted for, like, half the season, and I kinda have issues with how bewildering this is. (Especially since she was mean to Sawyer. My shippiness didn't like that.) So, naturally, I had to write fanfic about it in order to sort it out in my brain.

This is set pretty soon after 'Lockdown' and makes many a reference to 'The Long Con.' Also, I get that there's funky hatch stuff going and that doesn't really leave a lot of time for profound romantic introspection, realistically, but ask yourself – what is fic for?

If you ship Jate unerringly, this fic will probably make you hate me. So spare yourself. And me.

-

All the difference is in knowing.

It's such a childish impulse, to want something safe, but what it all comes down to is that she's running scared. After all, it is her specialty.

You look into Jack's eyes and you see everything. Not specifics, maybe. Not birthdays or favourite movies or past girlfriends. But there's that spark so impassioned it's almost desperate: that need to fix, to cradle and protect. He looks at her like that and she hates it, as a rule, because she's never been the kind of girl that wants to be protected, but she craves it too. She knows that with him she would never get hurt; that maybe he'd turn her into a creature all made up of prettiness and light and smiles. Sugar and spice. She should be better, so much better than she is, and maybe with him, she could be.

There's so much that's unknown in Sawyer. It's funny, because when she's with him, it's like slipping into an old pair of sneakers or popping Pretty Woman into the VCR (she has seen this movie thirty-two times and knows exactly how much he'd resent the comparison). She's known him forever; she looks at him and it's almost like a mirror. She knows him, she thinks, as well as she knows herself.

And that's the problem.

He lied to her. He lied to everyone. She'd been caught up in flirtations, looking forward to waking up every day just because there was always that promise of pointless banter or smiles that lingered or the (entirely deliberate) accidental brush of hands or shoulders. And yet he'd gone ahead and done it, fooled them all without the slightest trace of remorse, and she'd had to stand there and listen just like everyone else. She still doesn't know but can't help shaking the feeling that everyone had been watching her then: pitying, mocking. 'That poor girl, and she probably thought that they'd had something special.'

She knows why he did it. He wants everyone to hate him, and he does a damn good job making sure it happens. (He's condemned himself to his own self-designed eternity of suffering; eventual fire and brimstone aren't nearly enough.) If the circumstances were different, she'd have been perfectly capable of it herself, and she'd have done it just as well as he had. He's not the only one who knows how to deceive.

With Sawyer, there will always be that chance of darkness. It's in them both - she remembers the fire in its recognition, the spark that flared the second their mouths met. _Welcome home_, something said in the back of her mind, sharp and true and she still can't tell whether it had been her voice or his that spelled out the words, _you're just like me._

Jack is the sort to stifle, to extinguish. She remembers kissing him; such fumbling, frenzied searching. It had reminded her, more than anything, of water - some unwanted baptism that she'd fled from at the time. The absence of grand passion seems welcome now. It sickens her, a little, that she's using him like this, but what other choice does she have?

She remembers Sawyer's hands on her, pulling her out of the rain.

-

She's sitting next to the fire when he comes over, looking at the flames instead of the stars.

"Why, if it ain't the doc's favourite cheerleader," he says. She closes her eyes against the words. _Go away,_ she thinks, not sure whether she's pleading.

"Y'know, Freckles," he goes on, oblivious - or pretending to be, at least, "I could've used a rah-rah or two."

He sinks down next to her. His arm brushes hers for a split-second, and she forces herself to shift slightly, pulling away from him.

Her eyes are still closed, but she can see his face in that instant; devil-may-care facade slipping away in favour of genuine hurt, if only for a second. She knows the expression very well by now. The mask slips around her more than anyone else.

"What's wrong?"

She opens her eyes. "What do you mean?"

"You know what I mean," he says, his gaze fixed firmly on the fire.

She does.

"Not really, mystery man." It almost disappoints her, how perfectly the words come out. Light, careless. She hopes despite herself that he can still see through her.

He remains silent, but the confusion is all too apparent on his face. After a moment, he seems to reach a decision; he inhales sharply. "If this is about the guns--"

"It's not about the guns." And then, as if that weren't enough, "It's nothing."

"Man's gotta do what a man's gotta do, Freckles; I figured you'd understa--"

"Can you get over yourself for a second?" she interjects impatiently. "I don't care about the guns. It's not like it was a big surprise, anyway."

"Not a big surprise?" he repeats; his voice is rough, mocking, but that doesn't mean she can't hear the pain in it. "Not from where I was standin'."

"Yeah, well, it's not like anyone expects better from you," she says lightly. "You're a liar."

The words make her sick as she says them, but she keeps going. It's not like that's ever been enough to stop her before.

"Takes one to know one, princess," he responds. He's not giving up without a fight. She supposes she should have seen that coming.

"There's a difference."

"And what's that?" he inquires smoothly.

She turns to look at him. "You'll never change."

She'd been hoping, foolishly, that maybe he wouldn't be able to look at her. Instead, he meets her eyes dead-on, and she almost thinks it's a kind of revenge. He could have hidden it, the confusion and the anger and the hurt, but instead it's on full display.

She looks down, and tells herself it's because she figures he deserves at least one small triumph.

He doesn't get up and walk away. She entertains the idea of being the one to leave for a second, but then he starts talking.

"You might be able to spin your lies real pretty for Jack," he says, and it pierces even though he's barely speaking louder than a whisper. "But you're gonna have a hell of a time hidin' from me."

She silently damns him for knowing her so well - for being the only person who's ever been able to see right through her, no matter how low she's willing to sink or how far she's willing to go.

"You finished yet, Sawyer?" she asks, as if she doesn't care much either way.

"Yeah," he decides after seeming to take a moment to consider her words. "Yeah, I am."

As he stands, she keeps her eyes fixed on the fire. They stay there even after he's walked away; when he pauses for a moment to stare at her, she pretends not to feel him watching.

She recalls a conversation from a week or so earlier; standing barefoot on the shore at morning, and him coming up to join her. She'd told him she hated the ocean sometimes, missed the feeling of land that stretched on forever and ever, missed climbing into the car and just driving for hours, Patsy Cline on the radio and freedom on all sides: left and right, ahead and behind.

'One day,' he had suggested, smirking, 'when we get off this hellhole. One day, Freckles. Just you and me.'

'It's a date,' she'd agreed, and smiled at him, and then he'd started telling her with great sardonic amusement about the latest book he'd found, his voice drowning out the light crash of the waves.

She pulls her knees to her chest and idly savours the fire's warmth, deciding she'll watch it until it burns out.


End file.
